Regrets
by Madness Hamster
Summary: What if there was more to Peter's betrayal of the Potter's than people think?  Unrequited love is tough. Very mild allusions to slash


**REGRETS**

DISCLAIMER: Just let me check…nope, I don't own Harry Potter. Dammit.

A/N – Ok, this was written a couple of years ago, so it's pre-Deathly Hallows. I posted it on another site as a song-fic to Linkin Parks _Easier to Run._ Decided to take out the lyrics and post it here in yet another attempt to bully the muse back to the Potter fandom. Hope you enjoy!

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Twenty-five years ago I was a normal, carefree teenager. The dangers of the world around me, of the world outside the walls of Hogwarts couldn't touch me. I was happy.

And that was when I met him. James Potter, with his eyes constantly gleaming with the mirth of some new mischief and his jet-black hair, constantly unruly so it looked as though he'd stepped off a broom seconds earlier no matter when you saw him.

The unlikely smart-guy of the Marauders, he loved Quidditch. Told me once that he never felt so free as he did when he was on his broomstick racing after a quaffle, dodging a bludger, shooting a goal.

Twenty years ago I fell in love. With him. The reason it took me five years to see what was right in front of me all along is not important. The important thing is that I struggled and fought against it. The important thing is it was that love which is the reason I'm sitting here right now, so utterly alone, miserable, in pain, in this dank attic room, so bare and so devoid of even the tiniest glimmer of happiness or hope.

Nineteen years ago he fell in love. Lily Evans. The perfect Gryffindor beauty, prim and proper. She had all his brains and none of his mischief and he loved her in a way he could never love me.

I had been there for so long. I had been so close to him since first year, since that very first train ride, and it was her that he fell for.

I watched her reject him at every turn, not seeing, not caring, what he felt for her. Not giving a damn about the pain she was causing him, utterly oblivious to the nights he would spend awake, just asking me why she wouldn't love him, why she wouldn't give him a chance? And the whole time I longed to scream the same questions at him. Did I not deserve to have my feelings reciprocated?

Seventeen years ago, she accepted him. My pain was overwhelming, it covered everything. I had never felt such heartbreak, I was dying. I was dying and he didn't notice. He couldn't see what it was doing to me, what _he_ was doing to me.

I could feel nothing but the pain for so long that when the anger started to grow I didn't even notice it at first. Slowly. Oh-so-slowly. Until it wasn't the hurt I felt anymore. The anger covered it. I saw them together and imagined terrible things. I just wanted him to hurt the way I did. I wanted him to remember those nights that he'd sit so quietly, staring into the fire, fancying he could see her copper hair in the hearth, the emerald of her eyes in the dancing flames. I wanted him to remember how that felt. How I felt now.

Sixteen years ago I killed him.

Excuses won't help me now. No one wants to hear them. No one would understand them. All anyone understands is that I betrayed my best friend to his death, along with his innocent wife and almost his helpless child. But it's so much more complicated than that.

When He came to me, for all intents and purposes, my life was over. It had been over since James had first noticed Lily's hair shining in the sunlight one spring day. I just hadn't had the sense to realise it.

But He saw my pain, He felt my anger, He promised me satisfaction. It is said that of all the hundreds of emotions people are capable of feeling, the two that are so close the line that divides them is almost imperceptible are love and hate. Of the whole range, the two that can be corrupted so easily into the other are love and hate.

I spent months, years, waiting for James to love me. Years of being his pathetic pet, doing anything for a kind word, even a glance. I was too blind to see that there was no way he would feel the same as me because there was no way he _could_ feel the same as me.

I was the chubby little boy that followed him around. His friend. Nothing more, never anything more.

The Dark Lord offered me a way out. An end to the pain and hurt I'd lived with for so long. All I needed to do was tell him one thing. One little thing, and he'd fix all my problems.

I never dreamed of what could happen. It sounds such a poor defence, it was Lord Voldemort, for Merlin's sake. But I was so naïve. He offered me hope and I took it, without thinking of the consequences. Consequences that were devastating. Consequences that I've regretted every night since.

Yet, still, I hide the truth. When people look at me now, they see a traitor. They see a disgusting piece of scum who betrayed his friends out of fear for his own hide. I am so much a coward that I would rather that was their view. I am relieved with that view, for it means that they don't look at the pathetic love-sick young boy I was, even at the age of eighteen.

Three years ago I was revealed. For so long I'd hidden away, so ashamed of myself that I felt I deserved the worst punishment possible. And that is why I went to seek the Dark Lord – not out of any semblance of loyalty or power – but for the pain only He inflicts so well. The pain I deserve.

But it still doesn't hurt as bad as rejection from the only person you've ever loved.

Tonight I have refused His call thrice. The scar on my arm burns with an intensity I have never felt before. The pain of it makes my head swim and unbidden tears of pain and rage course down my face, but still I sit here. I have a decision to make.

The vial of poison that sits before me is the strongest ever created. It is said that it was brewed by Merlin himself to aid King Arthur in his fight against the witch Queen Morgana Le Fay. It cost me so much to procure it, yet the peace it offers me is worth everything I gave up and more.

Or I could answer the call, bear my masters anger and punishment for my lateness, and carry this pain of mine another day.

My eyes are fixed on the bottle. Endless serenity or deserving torture. Reach for my wand or reach for the vial?

A decision forms in my mind and I reach out my hand…


End file.
